Football's offshore playground

The sport of football is renowned for its murky dealings and questionable affairs. We can only imagine that Fifa president Sepp Blatter had his tongue firmly in his cheek when he opened the stunning new $196m headquarters in the secrecy jurisdiction hotspot of Zurich (within 600 metres, as it happens, of where today's TJN blogger is sitting) by saying that the vast glass-fronted complex would:

"allow light to shine through the building and create the transparency we all stand for."

The dirty business in the sport of football, and the offshore questions, just go on and on. If you follow British football clubs, you might be interested in the latest from Private Eye and Richard Murphy, who notes wearily the same old story regarding Hull City and Portsmouth FC:

"another football club whose ownership is hidden by Jersey nominees, whose main contribution to British public life is likely to be facilitation of another long standing institution of little football note, but of enormous significance to those who live in Hull – one of the poorest places in the UK"

And, for fanatics, more on Leeds United. (update: more on October 7th.)